Game of Checkers, Part 8: a tiny drama in CK2's Game of Thrones mod

Middlefinger

There are currently 65,000 Iron Throne soldiers spread out over The Vale, though we're winning most of the battles by feeding on smaller detachments and dashing away from the larger ones. When everything finally settles down again, what's the final result? The Vale is still independent, and The Reach still retains The Paps. Again, several years of bloodshed have changed absolutely nothing.

Checkers

And just when I thought I was done with the Littlefinger family, having outlived Petyr Baelish and having sent his son to serve on The Night's Watch, my Spymaster drops by with some news. Petyr's grandson, Yohn Baelish, is investigating my legitimacy. Will I never be free of these Middlefingers? There's some worse news attached to this: my own husband, Pearse Waters, is backing this plot.

That's it. I've had enough. I'm not taking this news with a polite smile and a dose of diplomacy. I decide to imprison my husband, but he somehow slips out of the castle before my guards can catch him. Jerk. Annoyed, I decide to go a step further with this third-generation Littlefinger. I'm just going to straight-up assassinate him.

Not only does the attempt fail, but Littlefinger finds out it was me. He blabs about it, naturally, to my Queen. The Queen's response? She arrests me and throws me in prison. Well! That didn't go the way I'd hoped.

Another King arrives on the Iron Throne, Bryenn III, the great-great grandson of Robert. He immediately declares war on The Vale to try to bring it back under his control along with all the other kingdoms. Maybe they'll oust my Queen before she can put me on trial? Or, maybe not. The Iron Throne begins their invasion by sacking Sunset Keep, naturally, then send thousands more soldiers to Wycliffe and begin sacking that.

I am given a trial and await the verdict. It is, shall we say, a harsh one.

Checkers5

Daisy is found guilty. Then she’s executed.

Damn those Littlefingers.

Checkers

Continue to Part 9.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.